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Tanla, an Indian provider of mobile software and services, has acquired 85% of Openbit, a Tampere, Finland based provider of mobile payment software and services, for US$15.8 million, in an all-cash deal.
The remaining 15% held by the management is to be purchased by Tanla in two tranches of 5% and 10% after the first and second year respectively.
Openbit has a proven business model with a unique value proposition around on-device payment, with an installed base of over 20 million Symbian OS-enabled Nokia handsets worldwide. The Company provides software vendors and content distributors with efficient and secure means to distribute and process payment of mobile content for end-users globally. Openbit has established global billing agreements that allow convenient payment of mobile content with nearly 90 operator networks in over 30 countries and with all major credit cards worldwide.

“The acquisition of Openbit extends Tanla’s payments portfolio beyond operator billing products to address the emerging market for rich media & business applications on handsets,” said Uday Reddy, CMD Tanla Solutions Ltd. in this release.

Juniper Research estimates the market opportunity to be in excess of $11 Billion by 2011 a third of which would be on account of retail and ticketing segments. The drivers for this growth can be attributed to convenience and increasing use of feature rich phones. Industry estimates for feature and Smartphone shipments by 2011 exceed 870 Million registering far higher CAGR as compared with Voicephones. More than 1 Billion subscribers are estimated to be using their mobiles for the purchase of both physical and digital goods globally over the next 3 years.

Filed under: Deal Tracker